Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement | proposals.app

Below are the perspectives of the UADP:

We understand the desire for there to be a more effective process behind incentivizing groups to create proposals. It’s unfortunate when an idea is put forth, that took numerous weeks or even months to iterate, and ends up being rejected, leading to no monetary compensation for such efforts. But compensating people to work on proposals without a clear way to measure success is a tricky task. Typically, the success metric is if the proposal passes or fails a vote. This also presents an additional adverse incentive for people to work on projects without having an explicit goal of seeing it through all the way to a successful onchain vote.

It’s often the case that the rejection of a proposal is emblematic of other issues. For instance, a proposal may be proposed at the wrong time–the DAO may not be mature enough to handle a given task. A proposal may simply not be unrealistic or overly ambitious. For example, the M&A initiative could’ve failed a vote even though it took months of effort to curate. Therefore, @Bernard & co. proposed to conduct a research initiative as a precursor to deploying funds. They overcame the funding issue by narrowing the scope from implementation to research. They also worked with the community, conducting numerous calls and reports. Same goes for the ventures initiative. In other words, if a proposal fails, it’s usually because the prosper presented something that is not right for the DAO, or the proposer simply didn’t work intimately enough with the community. If these aspects aren’t completed, then there shouldn’t be compensation.

All this being said, we do think some sort of bounty system could be present for accomplishing certain tasks. Therefore, we are voting abstain for this proposal. There is likely a better way of addressing the given problem statement. The DAO consistently has aspects that need to be developed, and much of the talent faces the cold start problem of even starting the research. Optimism is perhaps a decent DAO to look at regarding smaller scope missions.

Below are the perspectives of the UADP:

I think this could be a useful program.

First, let's discuss the differences between firestarters in our first and second milestone and questbook grant programs.

Questbook programs - A domain is selected by questbook admin (could be any process), an election is held, then that domain allocator is delegated authority to give up to $20k grants on their own ($50k with additional approvals).

Firestarters M1A - I happened to have extremely high-context on the needs of the DAO. If I saw that some effort was suffering from the cold start problem or had insight to unique needs, we would fund it. I would go and find the people I thought best for these needs, sometimes through a process, sometimes through intuition/experience/relationships. These grants led to STIP, STEP, ADPC, along with data procurement such as Open Block Labs for the first STIP.

(Remember that Firestarters was only 1/12 programs that we ran in M1A. Out of the 250 grants funded and 17,000 token holders rewarded in M1A - I only made decisions on about 15 grants! It is also legitimate in my view to test how a trusted person with high-context in relation to other mechanisms. When we say not every decision has to be decentralized - this was a test of that. The DAO was in a very early stage and needed some funding to get things moving.)

Firestarters M1B - "Disruption Joe doesn't scale" - This is the main problem with how the program was conducted during M1A. The way our team decided to experiment in M1B was to have a group of badged reviewers all review every application from an RFP call. This produced a different set of results which lacked the longer term vision and context of an individual deep in the weeds.

The M1B model for Firestarters hasn't been funding high profile projects with with vision to become more. It took more safe bets on things with clear milestones and kpis vs innovation with expectations around good communication and drafting proposals as milestones.

This change to Firestarters along with Questbook not having a mechanism to add new domains created the gap which this proposal seeks to solve.

We don't know that our Milestone 2 proposal will pass, but if it did, one of our programs would likely be another version of firestarters where instead of decentralizing by consensus, we decentralize by granting higher authority to more in context participants.

I don't want to say that this shouldn't be approved because we have an upcoming plan to solve the issue which may or may not be passed.

I do encourage collaboration, which it looks like they are intending by using Questbook software. I'd suggest that if this passes, they plan on integrating to some of our "ecosystem allocator" processes. In fact, this could be a good test for how our "ecosystem allocator" program can continuously add and retire new programs in a continuous way.

Our current' program is going great, but we are continually learning. Remember, this is halfway through the second iteration of the first ever pluralist grants program. Our Milestone 2 will need to address the gap we have left creating the need for this proposal, along with a few other key learnings:

New programs to pop up and be added to our decentralized accountability assessments and share other infrastructure to reduce redundant costs
A pool of funding be available where more programs that address specific needs can be spun up quickly with just a snapshot vote.
Multiple "allocation" programs can spring up to own specific pillars of our strategy
PATHWAYS for builders are made possible by having the funds and consistency for builders to see that was can indeed provide support from -1 to 100, not just 0 to 1.

I hope this helps for decision making. While there is a real need and there is nothing wrong with another grant program popping up - grant programs not tied to an ecosystem allocation system isn't something I can recommend as the best way forward. I do however trust that RNdao would be happy to collaborate - so either way this goes is safe to try for the DAO.

danielo from mrjackalop.eth

0.00 TOKEN

posted 2 years ago

thank you for the through reply! A few clarifications

we're not proposing a central planning, committee, nor working group for sense-making. We're proposing a decentralised sense-making mechanism based on surveying delegates for problems, and then in-depth user interviews and a couple of workshops to define what problems make sense. Then we might just fundamentally disagree in our belief that there's a lot to improve in the DAO vs there are no problems.
Agree that pilots tend to become permanent, but they also often evolve. And we're now likely seeing an example of the contrary with the incentive programs. And although I do believe the incentive experiments could have been executed more cost-effectively, I still see value in the learnings gained.
see above
We're not suggesting to lower the barrier for which proposal gets accepted, on the contrary. We're proposing a mechanism so proposals can be thought through. If you belive the DAO already has enough proposals of enough quality coming through and nothing needs to be changed, then we can just agree to disagree.
See point one. We're actually proposing a decentralised process. The difference is in being proactive (mapping problems) vs reactive (responding to proposals for solutions).
Except entrepreneurship offers big returns, and a big problem in entrepreneurship ecosystems is the lack of funding for SMEs. In the case of a DAO proposal, we don't want to offer people outside returns (e.g. I shouldn't get a MASSIVE bonus if this proposal passes). So the incentives are actually broken.

thank you for the through reply! A few clarifications

we're not proposing a central planning, committee, nor working group for sense-making. We're proposing a decentralised sense-making mechanism based on surveying delegates for problems, and then in-depth user interviews and a couple of workshops to define what problems make sense. Then we might just fundamentally disagree in our belief that there's a lot to improve in the DAO vs there are no problems.
Agree that pilots tend to become permanent, but they also often evolve. And we're now likely seeing an example of the contrary with the incentive programs. And although I do believe the incentive experiments could have been executed more cost-effectively, I still see value in the learnings gained.
see above
We're not suggesting to lower the barrier for which proposal gets accepted, on the contrary. We're proposing a mechanism so proposals can be thought through. If you belive the DAO already has enough proposals of enough quality coming through and nothing needs to be changed, then we can just agree to disagree.
See point one. We're actually proposing a decentralised process. The difference is in being proactive (mapping problems) vs reactive (responding to proposals for solutions).
Except entrepreneurship offers big returns, and a big problem in entrepreneurship ecosystems is the lack of funding for SMEs. In the case of a DAO proposal, we don't want to offer people outside returns (e.g. I shouldn't get a MASSIVE bonus if this proposal passes). So the incentives are actually broken.

I understand we might not agree on this but I thank you for your thorough and civil engagement in the discussion :slight_smile:

danielo from mrjackalop.eth

0.00 TOKEN

posted 2 years ago

edited 2 years ago

Thanks for the feedback. i'd suggest your position is a perfect example of why such a fund is needed: you reuqetsed many details to figure out and that would require significant work to draft, then get feedback on, then propose, then find out someone else has an issue with them, come back to the drawing board, and all that without knowing if one's going to get paid anything for it. As someone trying to contribute to the DAO it feels demotivating.

Now, I'm happy to work on the feedback but one thing is having concerns about details e.g. the criteria to elect the person, and a different thing is directionally being against the initative altogether. Could you please clarify?

Quoted from BlockworksResearch

While it mentions an assessor appointed by the DAO, it neglects to define the criteria for this role and the specific problems the assessor will address.

jump to post →

For clarity, the sense making excercise proposed would define which problems should be worked on (so it's not about "inventing problems" if no problems are proposed there would be no backing to approve grants to do problem definition). I have no means of suggesting the list of problems upfront without very significant work (i.e a sense making excercise), so hence this is part of the proposal.

Also please note that defining criteria for the role upfront might not be a good approach for an elected position. The candidates can submit their reasons for being a good pick and the delegates select as per their own criteria or ask questions as needed. After this pilot, there could be more clarity on what the characteristics were and this could be documented with an empiric approach.

Would an approach where there's just the sense making excercise proposed and the rest is left for a later proposal be something you'd support?

I think this could be a useful program.

First, let's discuss the differences between firestarters in our first and second milestone and questbook grant programs.

This change to Firestarters along with Questbook not having a mechanism to add new domains created the gap which this proposal seeks to solve.

I don't want to say that this shouldn't be approved because we have an upcoming plan to solve the issue which may or may not be passed.

New programs to pop up and be added to our decentralized accountability assessments and share other infrastructure to reduce redundant costs
A pool of funding be available where more programs that address specific needs can be spun up quickly with just a snapshot vote.
Multiple "allocation" programs can spring up to own specific pillars of our strategy
PATHWAYS for builders are made possible by having the funds and consistency for builders to see that was can indeed provide support from -1 to 100, not just 0 to 1.

danielo from mrjackalop.eth

0.00 TOKEN

posted 2 years ago

thank you for the through reply! A few clarifications

we're not proposing a central planning, committee, nor working group for sense-making. We're proposing a decentralised sense-making mechanism based on surveying delegates for problems, and then in-depth user interviews and a couple of workshops to define what problems make sense. Then we might just fundamentally disagree in our belief that there's a lot to improve in the DAO vs there are no problems.
Agree that pilots tend to become permanent, but they also often evolve. And we're now likely seeing an example of the contrary with the incentive programs. And although I do believe the incentive experiments could have been executed more cost-effectively, I still see value in the learnings gained.
see above
We're not suggesting to lower the barrier for which proposal gets accepted, on the contrary. We're proposing a mechanism so proposals can be thought through. If you belive the DAO already has enough proposals of enough quality coming through and nothing needs to be changed, then we can just agree to disagree.
See point one. We're actually proposing a decentralised process. The difference is in being proactive (mapping problems) vs reactive (responding to proposals for solutions).
Except entrepreneurship offers big returns, and a big problem in entrepreneurship ecosystems is the lack of funding for SMEs. In the case of a DAO proposal, we don't want to offer people outside returns (e.g. I shouldn't get a MASSIVE bonus if this proposal passes). So the incentives are actually broken.

thank you for the through reply! A few clarifications

we're not proposing a central planning, committee, nor working group for sense-making. We're proposing a decentralised sense-making mechanism based on surveying delegates for problems, and then in-depth user interviews and a couple of workshops to define what problems make sense. Then we might just fundamentally disagree in our belief that there's a lot to improve in the DAO vs there are no problems.
Agree that pilots tend to become permanent, but they also often evolve. And we're now likely seeing an example of the contrary with the incentive programs. And although I do believe the incentive experiments could have been executed more cost-effectively, I still see value in the learnings gained.
see above
We're not suggesting to lower the barrier for which proposal gets accepted, on the contrary. We're proposing a mechanism so proposals can be thought through. If you belive the DAO already has enough proposals of enough quality coming through and nothing needs to be changed, then we can just agree to disagree.
See point one. We're actually proposing a decentralised process. The difference is in being proactive (mapping problems) vs reactive (responding to proposals for solutions).
Except entrepreneurship offers big returns, and a big problem in entrepreneurship ecosystems is the lack of funding for SMEs. In the case of a DAO proposal, we don't want to offer people outside returns (e.g. I shouldn't get a MASSIVE bonus if this proposal passes). So the incentives are actually broken.

I understand we might not agree on this but I thank you for your thorough and civil engagement in the discussion :slight_smile:

danielo from mrjackalop.eth

0.00 TOKEN

posted 2 years ago

edited 2 years ago

Quoted from BlockworksResearch

While it mentions an assessor appointed by the DAO, it neglects to define the criteria for this role and the specific problems the assessor will address.

jump to post →

Would an approach where there's just the sense making excercise proposed and the rest is left for a later proposal be something you'd support?

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Jumpstart fund for DAO improvement

Abstract

The Problem:

Proposed Solution:

Timeline:

What does success look like?

Budget

call to discuss

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Jumpstart fund for DAO improvement

Abstract

The Problem:

Proposed Solution:

Timeline:

What does success look like?

Budget

call to discuss

Jumpstart fund for DAO improvement

Abstract

The Problem:

Proposed Solution:

Timeline:

What does success look like?

Budget

call to discuss

Jumpstart fund for DAO improvement

Abstract

The Problem:

Proposed Solution:

Timeline:

What does success look like?

Budget

call to discuss

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Call to discuss proposal

Call to discuss proposal

Proposals-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Proposals-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Proposals-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Proposals-as-a-Service (PaaS)